Netherlands

The Netherlands in the United States

History

In relation with the history of the dutch immigration to the United States, see here.

Revolution

The American Declaration of Independence received great response in The Netherlands. The ideas of `The Age of Reason,’ the writings of the French philosophers Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau, had found their way into Holland but the debate had remained theoretical. The structure of the Dutch republic was by then suffering severely from petrifaction. The glories of the seventeenth century were a memory. A few ruling families ran the country on a patriarchal basis, with a Prince of Orange as stadholder. The news from America now brought hope to the enemies of this system. The revolt seemed a warning to the ruling families, who gave the Dutch people as small a share in their government as the English Parliament had granted the colonists. In America the social theories of the French philosophers were being put into practice. Support of the American cause became a natural rallying point for the opponents of the Dutch oligarchy. All classes were represented, including the more enlightened aristocrats.
The merchants of Amsterdam again found themselves, by the very nature of their profession, on the side of freedom of trade and shipping. As early as 1775 they were in contact with the American rebels. The Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the Caribbean became the center of trade with the colonies, a trade which England naturally regarded as contraband. It was here that the very first salute was fired to the American flag. The trader Andrew Doria, entering the harbor of St. Eustatius on November 16, 1776, flew the newly designed flag (at that time without stars). The island’s governor, Johan de Graaff, acknowledged her and saluted her with eleven shots from the fort.

British protests over this action were so vehement that he was called back to Holland to account for himself. However, the States-General, overriding the Stadholder’s reluctance to offend England, immediately reinstated him as Governor of St. Eustatius. In 1781, a British fleet destroyed the installations on the island to put an erid to the trade with the rebels.

In the meantime France had recognized the new American republic and had declared war on England. A strong party in Holland wanted the Dutch government to follow the same policy. But Holland and England had been official allies for a hundred years. The Stadholder was a friend and relative of the English king.

The City of Amsterdam in the meantime, however, started its negotiations with the Americans in secret. A plan was drafted for a treaty of trade and friendship to become effective as soon as Holland would recognize the independence of the United States. But by then relations between Holland and England had deteriorated still further on the issue of the Dutch trade with the rebels. When England got hold of a copy of the secret treaty, it used it as a pretext to declare war on The Netherlands.

Holland and the American colonies were now united against Britain. In 1782 Holland formally recognized the independence of the United States, the second country to do so. The new American envoy to The Hague, John Adams, was proud `to have torn from England’s bosom … a faithful ally… by availing himself of the still small voice of reason… without money, without intrigue…’ The Credentials of John Adams

Popular sentiment had been with the colonies from the beginning. John Paul Jones, the famous American naval officer, wrote from Holland in December 1779: `The Dutch people are for us and for the war.’ Jones himself had actually received shelter in Holland in spite of violent protests from England, then still at peace with The Netherlands, and he was cheered as a hero wherever he went.

The Amsterdam merchants did not have a purely idealistic interest in the colonists’ effort to break through British trade restrictions. They hoped that Amsterdam would succeed London as the European center of American trade. This hope was not to materialize and England continued to monopolize the trade of the former colonies after their independence was won.

In the field of finance, important relations were established. In 1782, Adams obtained the first loan for Congress, five million guilders, from three Amsterdam banking houses. In the latter years of the eighteenth century The Netherlands was still the money market of Europe, and the fact that Amsterdam granted the first loan to the rebels was of great help to their prestige and cause.

These financial ties continued to be maintained after the independence of the colonies was recognized by the treaty of 1783. By 1794, the total amount lent by Holland had risen to thirty million guilders, or twelve million dollars. This formed the entire foreign debt of the United States.

But in the real battles the weakened Dutch republic could do little for its American ally, and the secret treaty which had led it into war with England cost the Dutch Republic it its territories in India. The major engagement of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war was a sea battle in the summer of 1780. The Dutch and British ships involved fought each other to a draw, but the Dutch fleet was disabled for the duration of the conflict. The peace treaty with England in 1784 forced the republic to cede the India possessions.

This sad outcome of the war Holland had fought with the new American republic against England, naturally did not boost the stock of Dutch progressives at home. For years the country tottered on the brink of a civil war; then, when in 1787 the Dutch progressives who called their party `the Patriots’ tried to topple the aristocratic regime, neighboring Prussia intervened. Prussian soldiers invaded the country, restored the oligarchy, and forced the leading Patriots to flee. Most of them went to France and were bound to return soon: the triumphant tide of the French Revolution brought them back to Holland and to power. Others went to the United States and thus became the first and only political refugees in that country from the Netherlands. The most famous of them was the Francis Adrian van der Kemp whom we mentioned earlier. He became a friend of George Washington, and planned the Erie Canal. He founded Barneveld, later called Trenton, in the Mohawk Valley. But he and his fellow immigrants were a small group and they left but few traces in America. [1]

War And Postwar Years

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 renewed the American-Dutch military alliance of the 1780’s. Holland, already at war with Germany and Italy, declared war on Japan within a few hours, even before the United States. During the following years, the fate of Holland was more closely linked to that of the U.S. than ever. American troops played a major part in the liberation of Holland from the German occupation, and after the fighting was over, the `European Recovery Program’ (usually still called `Marshall Aid’ in Europe, after its originator) poured more than a billion dollars into the reconditioning of the Dutch economy. In 1949, Holland, like the United States, for the first time abandoned its traditional peacetime neutrality and joined NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Those years saw the beginning of the heavy investment by U.S. companies in Europe and, in fact, of the enormous growth of the multinational companies and conglomerates which since have intertwined European and U.S. enterprise.

Politically, the relationship between the two countries found expression, in 1942, by Queen Wilhelmina addressing a joint session of Congress, while her daughter and successor Juliana had that same honor ten years later. The Netherlands had by then become such a solid ally of the U.S., that one could hear Dutch politicians occassionally complain that their country was taken too much for granted here.

In 1959, the new flagship of the Holland-America Line, the ms Rotterdam sailed into New York harbor with the heiress to the monarchy, Princess Beatrix, aboard the occasion was in memory of the visit by the Halve Maen, three hundred and fifty years before. [2]

Modern Times

In the 1980’s and 1990’s the Dutch-American relations were still as strong as they were before. Dutch financial interests in the US only increased: KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines – now owns a part of North West Airlines, which gives it a foothold in the important market of US internal flights. However, the merger between Dutch aircraft-factory Fokker and an American partner failed.

During the Gulf-war the Dutch provided naval support in the Gulf and sent patriot-systems to Israel as defence agains Scud attacs from Irak. In 1995 the diplomatic relations came under some stress when the US refused to support the candicacy of the former Dutch prime minister Lubbers to become secretary general of NATO after the former Belgian prime minister Willy Claes had to give up that position because of allegations of corruption during his period as prime minister. Another disturbing element is the role the DEA claims to be played by the Dutch Antiles in the drug-traffic to the United States. [3]

Resources

Notes

  1. By George M. Welling
  2. Id.
  3. Id.

See Also


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